Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat securing structure

We have just completed construction of our new 5-acre pond. Prior to the pond filling, we have begun the process of gathering structure and placing it in the pond. I have several questions:

1) The tire reef which we constructed out of old tractor tires is tied together and have holes drilled in the top. Do we still need to secure the tires to the bottom of the pond to avoid floating? If so, what's best (cinder blocks, culverts, T-posts)?

2) The brush piles typically consist of a large (20+ foot) cedar tree. Do these need to be secured to the bottom?

3) What improvements to the structure would you recommend?

Photos are at: Pond photos

CC,

Where is Columbus TX? It looks very, very dry down there...any rain lately?

BTW, the pictures are very helpful, I'm sure some of our cover experts will have a few ideas for you. My impression was that you may need to anchor your tress/tires a little more. Perhaps cinder clocks and nylon rope OR drive a few t-posts in the ground - then tie-off the trees/tires to the posts...Keep up the good work.

If it fits in with your goals, how about a few fish condos in the shallower areas for forage fish? Perhaps Cedar Trees sunk upright in concrete?

Gator

Columbus, TX is about an hour west of Houston. And it's been dry as a bone for about 3 weeks.

Thanks for the thoughts. We're concentrating on the deeper areas of the pond first. I expect to put in some condo-minnow-ums in the more shallow areas. I have a little time to work on that.

If I use cinder blocks for anchoring, I wonder how many are needed to keep the tires in place. In several brush piles, I have an old concrete culvert (say, 3-4 feet). Will that be sufficient?

I really believe in T Posts for tires. Not much downside unless you are swimming around them. I prefer cinder blocks wired on with aluminum clothes line wire for pallets.

Have you considered building your own plastic attractors out of pvc? It lasts forever. Also, I know a guy who wired together a bunch of old PVC lawn chairs. Drive around on garbage day and they're free. They look pretty hokey until the pond fills but they work great.

Captain:

From my experience, only...It doesn't take much to hold down tires. They are more dense than water, so if you you've poked enough holes in to let air out, they'll stay down.

On the trees, for me it just depended on how fast the pond flooded. For the lower areas that flooded quickly, even the giant cottonwood floated because the water came up before the tree had time to saturate and stay put. In the higher areas, even the smaller trees stayed put with little help, as they got covered very slowly and were waterlogged before they went under.

I cut metal t-posts in half and drove them in say 24 inches to hold my pallets. Didn't have enough blocks at the time, and the posts were easier to carry. You might have a tougher time driving them than I did...

Now, my wife got pretty tired of looking at all my "structure" before it went under...that's the running joke around here. If you don't want it, ask Matt...he might wanna add more "structure" to his pond. Now I need more for the second one...

How about PVC pipe "stickups"? Maybe dig a pattern of holes ~1 foot apart and plant some 3' PVC pipes. Do you think this little "PVC forest" would attract fish?

Reason I ask is, I will have kids fishing and don't want too many things to snag their lines.

Thanks for the thoughts. I like the idea of using wire to wrap pallets (etc.) together. We used some light rope and zip ties (too small). I have some T-posts and will probably knock a few in, at least for the tire reefs.

My wife scored some discarded ~3-4" diameter PVC pipes. Still trying to decide what to do. Have heard of the PVC Christmas trees, but I don't want to go buying a bunch of PVC tees at the hardware store. I might cut them to 2 or 3 feet, group some parallel to the bottom of the pond, and "plant" some vertically like bobad said.

you better put some concrete in those tires,i promise they will be floating.i learned the hard way.holes will not keep them down,go to home depot and buy 80 lb. sacks and mix with water and they will stay down.i would also tie everything together with wire the rope will not last very long.

What I did to put pvc together was was drill 1/2in + hole in one side to get a 3/4"drywall screw or self taping screw screwed out the other side into the side of another pvc pipe to make an x or tee .
3/8 Rebar spike anchors are cheaper then Tee post or cider block. Another thing I did was make semi circle shelves (6-8 ft x 3-4ft)on the inside of damn slope for spawning beds topped with sand & gravel.

An update on securing structure. The tire reefs we constructed (see link above) were mostly submerged when we returned this past weekend. Nothing had floated away... so far the holes in the tires seem to have worked. We had planned to drive some T-posts and tie off the tires, but the water was too high.

We did go ahead and drive some T-posts and tie off some other small structure.

Another thing we did was drive a T-post at the water's current edge and cover it with a 10-foot-long PVC pipe. We had measured off increments in feet, so now we have a tall depth gauge!

CC I'm not far from you, near Nixon, and all the rain has been stopping just east of us also. Holes in the tires have worked for me with no tires floating up or away. On branches, pallets and spools I have tied them with nylon rope to cinder blocks. Have worked very well. Once its water logged and doesn't float I go back untie the rope and reuse.